March 28, 2022
When you’re raised in a religion that tells you to get married as soon as possible, it’s not always easy to make a conscious decision about whether you’re actually ready for marriage.
What do I mean by a conscious decision? I mean, did you really consider it from a holistic perspective? Did you truly consider how getting married would affect all areas of your life?
- Did you consider if you even wanted to get married in the first place?
- Did you consider what you wanted in a spouse, other than that she be a “good, Christian girl”?
- Did you consider how marriage would impact your finances? Your career? Your life Mission?
Most Christian men don’t think about any of this stuff before they get married. Why? Because they usually get married when they’re way too young, and thus don’t yet have have the perspective to consider all the things on the list above.
I’ve spoken with many men who got married quite young. These are men who love their wives, but still speak about their decision to get married so soon with some regret. They tell me things like:
- “I didn’t understand what it’d really be like sharing everything we owned.”
- “I didn’t realize how difficult it would be make decisions that benefited two people equally rather than just me like I was used to.”
- “I didn’t think of what living with a woman would really be like. I thought it would be similar to having a roommate, but with more romance.”
- “I didn’t realize how hard it would be to support my wife if she quit working.”
- “I didn’t realize how much I’d lose out on in terms of career opportunities since I couldn’t dedicate the proper amount of time toward my job.”
It hurts to hear these kinds of things. I saw the conflict. I saw that they were wondering why love, commitment, and marriage had to come with such regret. Yet these men found themselves in this situation precisely because their decision to get married was not a fully conscious one.
Many of them were pressured to get married by their wives (at the time, girlfriends). Because they were afraid of losing her if they expressed a desire to wait, they just agreed.
Many of them were driven to get married solely because they wanted to have sex. If they were already having sex, then they wanted the sex they were already having to stop being considered a sin in the eyes of God.
Many of them were driven to get married because of their local culture. Especially where I’m from—the deep south—where many people get married immediately after college. Because of that, they marry the person they just happen to be dating when college ends, regardless of whether or not that person is actually a good match for them long-term.
So how do you make sure your decision to get married (or commit to a long-term partner) is a conscious one, rather than an unconscious one influenced by various factors outside of your control?
Ignore what religion says about marriage.
The Bible doesn’t talk that much about marriage. It’s the modern Church that’s so hell-bent on getting people married as fast as possible. When you’re stuck in fundamentalist Christianity, it’s hard to see through this. This is why when many people deconvert, they have problems with a still-believing spouse.
Ignore what your local culture says about marriage.
This will probably be quite difficult for a lot of people. Your culture has, more likely than not, a very powerful influence over you. The more traditional and conservative the culture, the higher the odds that this is true.
However, it can be done. For more information on this, read my article Deconstructing Culture.
Ignore what your family says about marriage.
Spinning off the above point about ignoring what your culture says about marriage, you’ll also want to ignore what your family says about marriage.
Very often, a person’s family will have many opinions about their future marriage plans, marriage timelines, and potential spouses. These are usually for selfish reasons, such them wanting a grandkid to play with or some shit like that. Your parents wanting to be grandparents should have absolutely no bearing on whether or not you get married and start having children before you are ready to do so.
Ignore what your friends say about marriage.
Likewise, forget what your friends say. You are not your friends and you don’t need to do the same things as them. Also, call me cynical if you want, but it’s highly likely that your friends will oversell the idea of marriage to you to justify their own decision to get married. In a way, it’s kind of like a “crab bucket mentality.”
Have sex before marriage.
This’ll make every Christian and pastor scream and pull their hair out. But one way that you can be sure as hell that you won’t get married just to have sex is to actually have sex before you get married. This will benefit you in a number of ways:
- You won’t get married just to start having sex since you’re already having sex. Your little head won’t cloud the thinking of your big head. This is always beneficial.
- You’ll know if you and your potential spouse are sexually compatible. This is more important than most people are willing to admit. For more information about this, read my article Sexual Compatibility Matters.
- In the Church, so much of premarital counseling is about sex. With sex out of the way, you can then focus your premarital counseling sessions (should you choose to do them) on other more important things, such as expectations for the future, timelines of big milestones (such as when to have a baby), and any fears and anxieties that might be present.
Just remember to be safe, please.
Wait until at least age 35.
I wrote in my book that no man should even think about getting married—or entering a long-term relationship—before the age of 35.
Here in the US, the law prohibits people under the age of 18 from voting. Why? Because the vote of a young person probably won’t be a conscious one. However, you can get married at 18 here in the US. But is the decision of an eighteen-year-old about a massive life change a conscious one? Also probably not.
Just wait. There isn’t any rush.
Conclusion
For many men, getting married young (or at all) is something that “just happens”—often without much thought or consideration given to the matter. If you are not yet married, then you want to avoid this. If you are divorced and are interested in getting married again, then you also want to avoid this. The potential consequences are just too great.
How do you avoid this? Follow the steps outlined above and you’ll be off to a good start. Further, it’s important to really learn about yourself over a significant period of time. Build a life for yourself first and then start to envision what the future might look like with a partner—or if you even want a partner at all. Then you can consider whether or not it’s time to settle down with someone.